I did my last post on December 1st. December 4th I had been scheduled to do a booksigning for the Westchest County SPCA. On that I had gotten into my car, drove out of the garage, went about 2 blocks had suffered a major heart attack. Luckily a Public Safety vehicle saw my car moving every slowing, when it stopped, they approached my car and saw I had passed out. They broke the window and opened the door of my car, pulling me out and started CPR, and then used a defibrillator to start my heart again. I then spent about 2 1/2 months in two hospital and a nursing home for rehab.
When I got home in the middle of February, I had over 2,500 emails in my various accounts/screen names. Once that got done I proceeded to re-read and re-edit the manuscripts for my two other children's books.
My children's, "A Lesson My Cat Taught Me" came out as self-published on October
2nd and I started to promote it at the same time. My heart attack brought an end to my promotion efforts which I didn't start again until the beginning of March. I knew I had more email accounts that the ones I had already gone through, and I knew at least two blogs but I could not remember what they were, etc.
Just "googled" myself I found I had this blog today I felt I had to try to do an update on my status. Anyway I just received my first royalty check as a self-publised author...nothing to talk about it's a start.
Anyway, tonight I've got back to entering the changes I've done to my paranormal romance since my last set of revisions, once I've completed that it's back to another set re-reading/re-editing, since I will now be looking at the manuscript with a "new set of eye."
I am a member of SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, the RWA (Romance Writers of America). Towards the end of last year I also joined the CWA (Cat Writers of America).
Lastly, I am being to formulater a fourth manuscript for a children's book which will be revolving around a cat.
Showing posts with label "A Lesson My Cat Taught Me". Show all posts
Showing posts with label "A Lesson My Cat Taught Me". Show all posts
Monday, May 2, 2011
Saturday, June 19, 2010
MY BEGINNINGS (Intro)
Having written numerous articles (commentaries) in my community newspaper for several years, and as a lark I wanted to see if I could write a full pledge fictional story. I wrote three pages one week, two the next, three... At the end of a few months I had written about 35 pages I saw the beginning a story (paranormal romance) starting to take form. But, I wondered if a guy could write something in this genre and get it published. After a little googling I found the RWA (Romance Writers of America), and to my amazement the president at that time was a guy writing under the name of Leigh Greenwood. Well that does it. I got the green light to move on with my writing.
I located a local chapter of the RWA in Rockland County (New York), Hudson Valley RWA (www.hudsonvalleyrwa.com) which offered critiques to their members, but first I had to join the national organization (www.rwanational.org). I received a warm welcome at the first meeting I attended.
After attending a few meetings I had learned a great deal. One of the most important things I learned is that there is a vast difference between writing fiction and writing the non-fiction commentary type items I had become quite skilled at writing. It had been at one of these meetings that I read the first five pages of my manuscript, and I got to learn I had been making all of the most common mistakes new authors have, too many tags, being overly descriptive, POV, etc. There were a lot, and I do mean a lot of "problems" within those five pages. Yet, through each critique, I got the sense that no criticism existed in those critiques, except a willingness to support me in becoming a better writer.
Along the way, my wife suggested that I stop writing the story I had been writing, and write something for children, and since I had a severe case of writer's block (it had been several months I had written anything). I looked around, and seeing the antics of our two, I got an idea for a story, which I decided to call, "A Lesson My Cat Taught Me".
When I finished it, I showed it to one of the women there, who said, "that although it had a few minor errors..." she deemed it to be publishable (thanks to the support and guidance I had received in writing my romance manuscript), . At last a green light. Time to search out and get a publisher.
After the normal, drawn out process, of query, reject, query... I got picked up by a small press publisher. My contract ended in March of this year, and since my book will no longer be available, I'm in the process of going self-publish.
So seek out the organizations in the genre you're writing in, seek out their local chapters for guidance and support. And join.
I located a local chapter of the RWA in Rockland County (New York), Hudson Valley RWA (www.hudsonvalleyrwa.com) which offered critiques to their members, but first I had to join the national organization (www.rwanational.org). I received a warm welcome at the first meeting I attended.
After attending a few meetings I had learned a great deal. One of the most important things I learned is that there is a vast difference between writing fiction and writing the non-fiction commentary type items I had become quite skilled at writing. It had been at one of these meetings that I read the first five pages of my manuscript, and I got to learn I had been making all of the most common mistakes new authors have, too many tags, being overly descriptive, POV, etc. There were a lot, and I do mean a lot of "problems" within those five pages. Yet, through each critique, I got the sense that no criticism existed in those critiques, except a willingness to support me in becoming a better writer.
Along the way, my wife suggested that I stop writing the story I had been writing, and write something for children, and since I had a severe case of writer's block (it had been several months I had written anything). I looked around, and seeing the antics of our two, I got an idea for a story, which I decided to call, "A Lesson My Cat Taught Me".
When I finished it, I showed it to one of the women there, who said, "that although it had a few minor errors..." she deemed it to be publishable (thanks to the support and guidance I had received in writing my romance manuscript), . At last a green light. Time to search out and get a publisher.
After the normal, drawn out process, of query, reject, query... I got picked up by a small press publisher. My contract ended in March of this year, and since my book will no longer be available, I'm in the process of going self-publish.
So seek out the organizations in the genre you're writing in, seek out their local chapters for guidance and support. And join.
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